no title

United States should drop death penalty

Letters Policy

The Dispatch welcomes letters to the editor from readers. Typed letters of 200 words or
fewer are preferred; all might be edited. Each letter must include name, home address and daytime
phone number.
Dispatch.com also posts letters that don't make it to print in
The Dispatch.

I respond to the Associated Press article “Botched execution
intensifies objections” in Thursday’sDispatch. What’s worse? That the government botches executions, or that it
sentences dozens of innocent people to death?

It’s time to face the facts. The death penalty in Ohio and across the United States is too
broken to be fixed.

A lot of people were shocked this week when a study was published by the prestigious National
Academy of Sciences stating that 4 percent of death sentences — one out of every 25 — was imposed
on an innocent person.

I wasn’t shocked. I spent 22 years on Ohio’s Death Row for a crime I did not and could not have
committed.

Don’t say it can’t happen to you, because it can.

I was the most “common Joe” out there. I was never in trouble with the law, and I was an
honorably discharged war veteran.

If you don’t have money, power or influence, you can get arrested and lose your life for
something you didn’t do.

My case proves that the system is broken, and the American Bar Association agrees.

In 2007, the ABA found Ohio didn’t meet 93 percent of the guidelines for a fair and accurate
system.

In response, a task force formed by the Supreme Court of Ohio and the Ohio State Bar Association
took two years to look at our system. The task force suggested more than 50 reforms to “fix” the
death penalty in Ohio.

I hope the legislature adopts all of the reforms. But ultimately, they are just putting lipstick
on a pig.

Even if you adopted all the reforms, there’s still no guarantee that you won’t execute innocent
people like me. As long as humans are in charge, they will make mistakes.

I believe God has a plan for me.

I’m working with groups such as Witness to Innocence and Ohioans to Stop Executions because
people have to hear the truth about the death penalty: The government doesn’t always convict the
right people and doesn’t always execute people humanely.

If we can’t get it right 100 percent of the time — and I’m living proof that we can’t — we need
to get rid of the death penalty once and for all.